


Volition

by saisei



Series: Agency [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Blind Character, Canon Disabled Character, Catboys & Catgirls, Dehumanization, Domestic Fluff, Gen, Mutilation, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Canon, Recovery from trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 05:01:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20303878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saisei/pseuds/saisei
Summary: Prompto finds Ignis; that's the easy part.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lagerstatte](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lagerstatte/gifts).

Prompto started with offerings of food. He left a plate way at the far end of the haven, and signaled his location with constant quiet noise while he ate and puttered around. After a couple of weeks Ignis was comfortable enough with him that he didn't just grab and run.

He tried talking next, a one-sided ramble about whatever he'd photographed that day, the weather, how much he wanted to take a real bath. Ignis was distrustful; when he was listening, he didn't eat, crouching so tensely Prompto worried he'd bolt. But he didn't. Even scared, he was still brave.

Around the middle of the second month, he greeted Ignis' appearance with an offhand _How's it going?_ and got a raw, rusty _Fine_ in response. A minute later, after some baleful consideration, Ignis added, "And you?"

_He's talking to me!_ Prompto sent to Noct later, thrilled and terrified he'd fuck up in equal measure.

He didn't have deep conversations with Ignis, but Ignis bloomed with the attention, staying a little longer each time, curious about what Prompto was doing. Noct had had Cor put Prompto on a long-term undercover assignment for the Crownsguard – Mission: Find Iggy – but it was super clear to him that finding him had been the _easy_ part, even though it had taken almost half a year to track him down. Noct was fine with keeping him on assignment indefinitely; Prompto knew he wanted Ignis to return to the Citadel so he could be taken care of the way he deserved, but he warned Noct not to set his heart on it.

But Prompto made progress. Small steps. He'd told Ignis he was working for Vyv and Sania – which was true – to document flora and fauna and bugs and whatever else needed documenting. The world was healing all around him, and he was thrilled to witness its recovery. Ignis knew how to use a camera, of course, so Prompto started taking him out on shoots. Ignis might not be able to see, but he could still polish lenses and set up tripods, and he was better than Prompto at finding sheltered spots where they could hunker down for hours, waiting for the perfect shot.

When he thought Ignis wouldn't bristle, Prompto loaned him clothes, because Iggy was still wearing the rags of his uniform. The trousers were too short, but Ignis was thin enough that the waist fit perfectly (because he'd lost his tail, of course, so Prompto doesn't tell him he looks good; but Iggy seems pleased, more or less). A while later, he ordered him a new pair of shoes that Ignis ignored out of pride for a couple of weeks before giving in and wearing.

One day Ignis let him brush his hair, which was long and snarled, full of debris.

"You always kept your hair perfect, remember?" Prompto said, forgetting for a moment to maintain the charade of being strangers. Under his hands, Ignis jerked, then trembled, panting, ears flattening.

"I'm sorry. It's okay if you don't want to remember," Prompto said, keeping his pace even, one small piece of hair at a time, being patient and not pulling. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

"Nothing hurts me," Ignis said, and there was an undercurrent to his terror, of resignation; fatalism, even.

"I'm not Ardyn." Prompto closed his eyes, fingers rubbing light circles against Ignis' scalp. "But he said he was me, right? So you're right to not trust me, but I don't know if I can prove I'm me."

"Probably not," Ignis agreed. He was sitting on the ground in front of Prompto – there was another chair, but Ignis ignored it – and now he lowered his forehead to Prompto's leg. One clawed hand around his ankle, but Prompto thought he was looking for comfort through the touch, and not threatening harm. "You needn't concern yourself."

They sat like that for a while. Prompto looked off at the majestic scenery, Ignis stared at nothing. Finally, Prompto started working on his hair again. "There's a house up the road I'm thinking of fixing up," Prompto said, watching Ignis' reaction carefully. He didn't seem immediately upset, but he was on edge, and he was very good at hiding his emotions when he was wary of danger. "Be nice to have walls and stuff."

That made Ignis' ears twitch again in threat reaction.

"And a shower," Prompto added. "Six, I miss showers."

Ignis had left Insomnia with an unholy amount of hair treatments and conditioners and styling products in little glass bottles. He'd had more hair, of course, when he still had his tail. Prompto'd only touched it a few times, by accident in the car or the tent, but he remembered it'd been fluffy and soft. One of the few things Ignis had complained about during the decade Noct was gone was the poor quality of hair gel. Prompto wondered now if that had been a cry for help, if Ignis had wanted someone to really _look_ at him and understand that Ardyn was... tormenting him.

Neither Prompto nor Gladio had known; when Noct returned, Ignis explained what he'd learned from Ardyn over the past decade, and they'd used that information to save Noct's life. _At what price?_ Noct had asked, over and over, after Ignis fled. _What did he let Ardyn do to him?_

Prompto let the subject of a house drop for a few days. He finally got Ignis' hair detangled and pulled it back into a loose ponytail. Ignis didn't like the idea of that – he said it must look slovenly – but he refused to have scissors or a knife near his head. Which Prompto guessed made sense. Ignis shaved with a terrifying razor-edged dagger, but he trusted himself. Prompto was still being evaluated.

The next time he drove into town for supplies, he filled his truck up at the hardware place: nails, paint, tools, pieces of wood, tape. Despite his reservations, Ignis turned up on his doorstep to help. He got the well working and then scrubbed down every wall and floor until they gleamed. He had a good sense for décor, and built frames for Prompto's pictures, which covered the walls.

When the work was finished enough that the house was livable, Prompto grabbed Ignis' hand in a spontaneous gesture of happiness and said, "Home sweet home."

He was horrified when Ignis turned on his heel and walked away, and stayed away for a whole week.

_I fucked up_, he confessed to Noct. _I went too fast._

_He'll be back,_ Noct assured him. He sent what he called a care package, which was actually three large cartons that Prompto found waiting for him when he went to get the week's groceries.

Ignis was sitting on the front steps when he came back.

"Hey," Prompto called. He wasn't sure if Ignis could tell one car from another by the sound of the engine, and didn't want him to worry.

"I thought you left," Ignis said.

Prompto couldn't figure out if that meant he'd wanted him gone, or if he was relieved he was back. Whatever. "Help me carry this stuff in."

Ignis scoffed, a quick huff of amusement, probably assuming Prompto was being lazy – the front door opened onto the kitchen, after all, and how many potatoes could he possibly have bought? But he came over anyway, and between them they got everything inside in two trips.

Ignis was curious about the boxes, but didn't ask, just set about putting stuff in the pantry while Prompto opened them up and spread their haul over the kitchen table. In between slightly yellowed but still fluffy towels, there was a super fancy set of dishes and flatware in one box; another had a ton of hair styling stuff and soap; and the last had bulbs, packages of seeds, and gardening tools, courtesy of Gladio.

"Fresh veggies!" Prompto said, shoulder-bumping Ignis in his excitement. "And like, flowers and herbs. We can upgrade this place from a shack to a genuine cottage."

Ignis was intent on sorting through the toiletries with laser-like focus. He gave Prompto a distracted hum in reply, and then disappeared into the bathroom with an armful for nearly two hours.

Prompto wondered if he should mention that the stuff was from Noct, but he bet Ignis had recognized the fancy-ass Citadel tableware. He left two towels outside the bathroom door, hollering to give Iggy a heads-up, and then went to hang the rest on the clothesline to air.

There were two bedrooms, which was why Prompto had wanted _this_ shack over the other deserted buildings in the neighborhood. He moved the rest of the styling stuff onto the dresser in the room he thought of as Iggy's, and hoped he could get him to stay the night, here, in a real bed, where it was safe.


	2. Chapter 2

Prompto always made a point of asking if Ignis wanted to go with him to town, now that they were co-habitating. Ignis always refused, and it turned out that eyesight wasn't required to level someone with a scathing glare. Probably the idea _was_ dumb. Prompto wasn't sure he could talk fast enough to keep someone from shooting Ignis as a daemon. But Ignis was generally game for photo shoots in isolated locations, so long as they didn't disrupt the garden watering schedule too much.

"Do you miss driving?" Prompto asked one day when they were on the way to a sunset shoot for Meteor's annual fundraising calendar. "You used to – sorry," he said, wincing as Ignis curled even more into himself on the seat. Prompto suspected that he had nerve damage where his tail had been cut off; he disliked chairs, generally, and the passenger seat in particular bothered him. Or maybe Prompto was overthinking, and it was just his shitty driving that made Ignis nervous.

"I miss being a person," Ignis said, very clear and dispassionate.

Prompto opened his mouth and then closed it again; heartbreak wasn't something he could afford. Iggy kept his lifetime of pain locked down tight, and if just one sentence was enough to make Prompto cry, he wasn't going to be trusted with any more of Ignis' revelations.

When he could keep his voice steady, he settled for saying, with equivalent lack of emotion, "You're a person to me."

Ignis' ears turned back and flattened. So. That went over well.

They got to the overlook in time to set up his two Loktons on tripods. Ignis was careful with the equipment; Prompto got the impression that he took pride in his role as photographer's assistant. But he also bet that Ignis knew full well that each camera was more valuable than his life.

Because to most people either he was something to be hunted for cash, or some exotic pet, sadly damaged. Prompto had had more than one nightmare where he found out he was Ignis' owner. Good thing his heart was unbreakable, or else he might dwell on that, watching Ignis choose the proper lens and filter for the camera he was in charge of.

They get gorgeous shots of the sun setting, and then changed everything up quickly just in time for moonrise. The sky above was a perfect dome of light fading into darkness, the last of the sun's lingering light turning everything molten, ethereal. Prompto whipped out his pocket camera and begged Ignis for permission to take his picture; he was glowing, skin and hair and ears, and when he slid his glasses off his clouded eye looked like the harvest moon. Prompto went nuts with the snapshots, even grabbing a few selfies together.

It reminded him painfully of the old days when they were traveling to Altissia, before Ignis was hurt so badly, and Noct disappeared.

He'd sooner chuck his cameras over the cliffside than say so, though, so he just chirped that the pictures were awesome. "Can I send one to Noct and Gladio? They… really want to see you."

Ignis put his glasses back on. "There's nothing to see."

Prompto nearly didn't listen properly, but then the meaning and weight of the words exploded in him with a headache-inducing force.

"Iggy," he said, and he could hear that he was over-emotional but there wasn't any way to stop pity and horror from bleeding into his voice. "_Dude_. You're like the opposite of nothing. You saved Noct's life, we all know you did. You're brave and loyal. A good friend. The best."

"I whored myself out," Ignis said. "I know just how little I am. How abhorrent."

"Not at all?" Prompto said, baffled and now starting to feel the burr of anger. "I know he hurt you and lied to you – "

"He did not," Ignis hissed, surging forward like he wanted to get right up in Prompto's face; like he'd been pushed beyond his instinct for self-preservation. "I know full well he told the truth _because Noct is alive_."

"So maybe he had scourge on the brain and beautiful things looked ugly to him," Prompto countered impatiently. "Black goo used to leak out his eyeballs." Ignis flinched, and Prompto took a breath, then another. A horrible thought slipped into his mind and refused to leave. "Did he ever pretend to be me and say that shit? Or do bad stuff?" The word _rape_ caught in his throat, because he didn't want to picture that (he already was), he didn't want to know if Ignis survived because he told himself he'd wanted and asked for it.

"Not just you," Ignis said, retreating back behind an emotionless wall. "You weren't special, don't imagine you were."

"_Fuck_." Prompto dug his fists into his eyes.

After a moment, he felt a fluttering touch on his arm that resolved into a warm hand. Ignis tugged, and Prompto shuffled forward, letting himself be wrapped up in Ignis' arms, taking comfort even though he'd seen the claws on the hands at his back rip daemons to death. He'd be a goner if Ignis wanted him gone. But Ignis seemed to need the hug as much as Prompto did, tucking his face into Prompto's shoulder and trembling, shudders going through him in waves.

When Ignis finally slumped, as tension gave way to exhaustion, Prompto realized he'd been suppressing a purr. When Ignis realized it was audible he tried to choke it down in distress, as if he expected to have his vulnerability turned on him, his weakness twisted to cause harm.

Prompto kept his hold steady, leaning his head against Ignis' so they were ear to ear, and started talking quietly about everything around them: the view of the landscape from the cliff, the striations on the stones, the stars slowly appearing overhead. He knew a few constellations by name, but outside of Insomnia there were too many stars for him to find the ones that connected to form pictures.

When his irritation with Prompto's inaccuracies grew overwhelming, Ignis started offering suggestions. Even though he was operating by memory alone, he had a good idea of what Prompto was looking at. They stargazed for a good long while, until Prompto yawned in the middle of a confused argument about a couple of stars – how would he know if they were blue? they were star-colored – and realized how late and dark it had gotten. He felt a visceral stab of fear – at the dark, at what might be in it – before shaking it off and telling Ignis they needed to make camp. The routine was comforting; campfire, tent, dinner, sleeping bags laid out side by side.

In the morning, after the dawn shots had been taken and Prompto'd completed his morning stretches and was therefore moderately awake, he asked Ignis again about sending pictures.

"Why not?" Ignis said. Prompto had brought a flask of hot coffee from home, and Ignis had been clinging to it since he got up. Coffee'd only recently started to be produced and was still stupidly expensive, but Prompto earned enough to live on from Vyv; he was willing to take his Crownsguard pay in royal coffee beans. He'd been unsure if getting Iggy addicted again was a good thing, but going by how his ears curled forward, it made him happier than almost anything else. If terrifyingly possessive.

"Okie-dokie," Prompto said, and dropped into his chair to send off some messages. Ignis handed him a breadroll, and he was just finishing it off when his phone buzzed to life with replies. "Noct's so thrilled, man," he said, reading. "He says you look really good. He used a ton of emoji, I think maybe he's not really awake – " _oops, wakin' up the king_ "– but I didn't even know there were this many smilies and hearts. Damn." He grinned as another message popped up, this one with fish and flowers. "Did I ever tell you how freaked out he was when you left? He didn't know what he'd done to drive his best friend away away."

Ignis sighed. "I wasn't human," he said, and he was starting to sound impatient, like Prompto wasn't _listening_ to him. "I didn't want Noct knowing."

"More like," Prompto suggested, taking inspiration from the way Ignis held the coffee flask tucked against his chest like a baby, "maybe your human part was so hurt that the cat part stepped up to protect it." His phone buzzed again, then again. "Gladio – damn, it looks like he wrote a whole novel, you want me to read all of it?" Prompto didn't wait for an answer, he just launched into Volumes One and Two of the latest news from Insomnia, what people were up to, how Iris was doing, questions about their garden. "Wow. He misses the fuck out of you."

Ignis' hand tightened it's grip on the flask, and Prompto saw a flick of claws before Ignis got himself under control. "They know where we live?"

Prompto made a face. "They won't just turn up. We all know you're smart and know the land – it took me _months_ to find you."

"You fed me," Ignis said. "Like I was an animal to be tamed."

"Like you were hungry," Prompto countered. "Not as if you'd have stuck around if I'd gone, _hey dude, long time no see, what's up?_"

"I had food. Fish, and wild vegetables." Ignis sighed. "You should have started with coffee."

"My bad," Prompto said.

Ignis unscrewed the lid of the flask and took a slow swallow, savoring the taste. "I'd be willing to see them," he said slowly. "But not at your house."

"Makes sense," Prompto agreed, even though he'd thought it was _their house_. "Noct's got king stuff to do, so maybe somewhere closer to Hammerhead? A haven, for old times' sake?"

"Why not?" Ignis said, and closed his eyes, looking up at the sun.

For the big meeting day, Ignis cut his hair and styled it up, close to how he'd done it during the dark years. Prompto overrode his protests and insisted on buying him new clothes that were closer to his actual size. He paid a premium at the market for a button-down shirt and trousers that still had shop tags on them; he knew all the clothes scavenged from the houses of the dead were just fine after a washing, but he didn't want Ignis wearing them. So what if the shirt was pink.

The last thing Prompto wanted was for anything to go wrong, so he'd made himself sit down and hash things out with Iggy. What and how much could he tell Noct about what happened. What Ignis was comfortable with Noct and Gladio doing and knowing.

"Can I tell them about Ardyn – " he'd started, and Ignis' hands cleched into fists, claws out. "Names we won't mention," Prompto continued, and Ignis actually huffed in weary amusement at that. He'd felt weirdly guilty sending off a message about Ignis, when so much of what he knew felt like it'd been confessed in confidence; but then he reminded himself that Gladio had said in Gralea, right after they rescued Ignis and definitely in his hearing, that he'd have been better off put down. Ardyn couldn't hurt Ignis any more, but Gladio and Noct _could_, with careless ease. Prompto needed to make sure they didn't.

According to the plan – since they were both early risers – Prompto and Ignis arrived at the haven first and put their tent up on one side. It was too early to light a fire, but they built one for later and set up four chairs, and Prompto wandered around taking pictures of wildflowers while Ignis prepped food for dinner. Sometimes, if he described them well enough, Ignis could tell him the flowers' names. 

When a car pulled off the road and into the parking area, Ignis' ears twitched hard, as if straining to listen.

"That's them," Prompto said anyway. "Looks like Noct's making Gladio carry all the heavy stuff. Noct says his back problems aren't as bad as they were, but he's limping. Probably from the long ride."

"Can they see us?" Ignis asked. He was wearing his sunglasses and looked totally chill, but Prompto reminded himself that he probably wasn't relaxed. At all.

"Well, _now_ they can," Prompto said. Even he could hear Gladio's feet stomping up the path and his muttered annoyance at Noct for not pulling his weight. Noct ignored him and waved. Prompto relayed this information, and Ignis raised a hand to return the greeting stiffly.

But then Gladio dumped everything right at the top of the path and called, "Hey, Iggy," and suddenly everyone was hugging, arms entangled, backs thumped, tears shed but if no one called Prompto out on his, he'd keep quiet about theirs.

"It's so good to see you," Noct said, with his arms around Ignis' neck and his forehead pressed to his shoulder. "I'm so sorry – I hope someday you can forgive me."

"There's nothing to forgive," Ignis said, and he sounded like he really meant it. His voice was strong and his accent crisp; despite the royal millstone around him, he was standing tall.

From where he was tucked under Gladio's arm, Prompto could see the ghostly memory of Ignis' younger self so clearly like this: ears peaked, tail held high and twitching, green eyes glinting with amusement and intelligence. But each scar and each loss was a mark of his loyalty and endurance; of him spitting in the face of death and saving himself so he could save Noct and the world. The prices he'd paid, over and over, to be human, a person. Someone who had a right to exist.

Prompto's feelings were spilling over, so he did what he always did to ground himself. He pulled out his camera and did his best to preserve the moment. Four best friends, squinting against the sunlight: war over, still healing, but together again at last.


End file.
